But perhaps that wedding is not unique. At the same time that research in the Bible Code has taken off, research in a seemingly unrelated field has taken off as well, namely, biological design. These two fields are in fact closely related. Indeed, the same highly improbable, independently given patterns that appear as the equidistant letter sequences in the Bible Code appear in biology as functionally integrated ("irreducibly complex") biological systems, of the sort Michael Behe discussed in Darwin’s Black Box.

But perhaps that wedding is not unique. At the same time that research in the Bible Code has taken off, research in a seemingly unrelated field has taken off as well, namely, biological design. These two fields are in fact closely related. Indeed, the same highly improbable, independently given patterns that appear as the equidistant letter sequences in the Bible Code appear in biology as functionally integrated ("irreducibly complex") biological systems, of the sort Michael Behe discussed in Darwin’s Black Box.

The relevant statistical methodology is identical for both fields.

Behe puts ID in the same category as astrology and Demsbki puts ID in the same category as the Bible codes.

And they wonder why no one takes them or their IDiot theories seriously.

*One* of my favortie quotes

Quote

The human authors of the Bible, writing well before the advent of computers, would have been incapable of consciously introducing into the Bible the patterns that Bible Code researchers are finding by means of computers. Hence these patterns, if not attributable to chance, must stem from a non-human intelligence.

Yeah it's all about "pattern detection" and I see a real pattern developing here but it has nothing to do with intelligence...

Wasn't there a paper published a couple years ago where someone demonstrated that hidden messages a la the 'Bible Codes' could also just as easily be gotten out of Moby Dick? I wonder if Dembski would then have to ascribe religious significance to that book as well...

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

Wasn't there a paper published a couple years ago where someone demonstrated that hidden messages a la the 'Bible Codes' could also just as easily be gotten out of Moby Dick? I wonder if Dembski would then have to ascribe religious significance to that book as well...

Skeptical Inquirer has had a ton of fun with the Bible codes. The first article was in 1997, note Dembski's book review was in 1998. Too bad Demsbki does not subscribe to SI, he could have saved himself some humiliation. Enjoy:

For those of you who might think there is something to these "codes", here is a simple test. Apply the "Explanatory Filter" defined by William Dembski in his books on Intelligent Design. You will find that the codes fail Dembski's Explanatory Filter. Dismally.

Hmm...Looks like Dembski could have used his own magical construct to refute the Bible code himself.

I played with the math once for things like this. The impression I was left with was that for something about the length of the Bible, most short words would appear in it someplace, and likely quite a few short phrases. So if one doesn't decide ahead of time exactly what phrases are wanted, there's probably some in there that would be close enough to the wanted meaning.